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Top prize for TAG

Bustech owner and Queensland bus operator Transit Australia Group (TAG) awarded

Gold Coast bus operator Transit Australia Group (TAG) has won business of the year at the Gold Coast Business Excellence Awards recently.

Bustech, which is owned by TAG, was praised for launching the country’s first full electric bus and is now working to deliver an electric bus network in Malaysia and has similar plans for the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the pipeline.

The operator edged out several other Gold Coast service providers and could not be happier with the honour, or the year it’s had overall.

“We are very excited about the win,” TAG chief executive Michael McGee says.

He is confident the demand for electric buses will increase rapidly in Australia and is seeing huge interest from overseas.

“The aim of developing a fully electric bus was to realise the environmental benefit of zero carbon emissions, along with reduced maintenance requirements due to the low number of moving parts required compared to standard combustion or hybrid vehicles,” McGee says.

“Over the next few years electric buses will grow in popularity due to the increased battery performance, decreasing costs and governments around the world demanding solutions for inner city pollution.”

The organisation also won the 2015 Golf Coast Mayor’s Award in the innovation category.

Bus operations run by TAG include Surfside Buslines, Gold Coast Tourist Shuttle and Sunbus on the Sunshine Coast, Townsville, Cairns, Rockhampton and Magnetic Island.

TAG has been owned by the Calabro family since 1989 when they purchased the Greyhound bus company.

The organisation had 56 buses in 1989, but it grew with the purchases of the Tweed Bus Service in 1993, Gold Coast Citybus in 1995, Gold Coast Tourist Shuttle in 1998 and Coomera Bus Lines in 2001.

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